At The Village Voice, Trevor Bach writes, “The life and death of Steven Sotloff, a funny, much-beloved middle-class kid from Pinecrest, Florida, offers a glimpse of the American connection to the unthinkable tragedy and barbarism still unfolding in the Middle East.” Sotloff, an American and Israeli citizen fascinated with global journalism, was kidnapped by ISIS in Syria in August 2013. The United States’ non-negotiation policy meant that Sotloff was kept captive while European hostages were released with multimillion-dollar ransoms, Bach writes—until ISIS beheaded him in 2014.